S. Awan is a failed journalist, a student of history, a lover of music, film, culture, and an enthusiast of the the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

The Salisbury poisoning saga has gotten more and more confusing and uncertain as it has dragged on.

I don’t particularly even care: I’m just watching with baffled curiosity.

In the first instance, I expressed doubts about the story, on account of both the timing and the fact that Salisbury (and later Amesbury, where the secondary victims of the poisoning were) was so close to the MoD’s chemical warfare facility, Porton Down.

Even in that same article, however, I said that I also didn’t have any trouble believing that someone from the Russian state or Russian intelligence did poison the ex-KGB spy in Salisbury. I’ve never subscribed to the position held by a great many in counter-mainstream media realms: which basically seems to be that the Russian state is full of noble angels who can never, ever do anything dodgy.

As I said then, I tend to believe a number of assassinations of Russians abroad, including journalists, were sanctioned by the Russian state.

Putin himself was on record, from 2010, suggesting that any Russian traitors or defectors would be targeted at some time or another. (more…)

Am I the only one who can’t quite work out what happened last weekend in Syria or what it’s all supposed to mean?

That is, I can’t work out what the US-UK-France Triumvirate (the same Triumvirate that led the intervention against Gaddafi in Libya) was trying to do when it decided to carry out strikes against alleged chemical weapons locations in Syria.

It’s all been a bit confused. Which is one reason I haven’t commented on any of it until now. The other reason is that the night of the military action (Friday 13th) was the day I was burying my grandfather: and so I had no interest in writing anything or keeping track of events at that time.

But it also allowed me to delay or withhold opinion and just keep an unbiased eye on the news for a few days to see how things unfolded.

And it is a pretty big rabbit-hole – based entirely on the location where this incident is said to have happened.

Which we will get to in a moment; and then you can decide for yourselves how relevant you think it is or isn’t. But first, let’s just do the basics.

In another month, I would’ve assumed or accepted that the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was – as we’re being told – a hit by Russian intelligence operatives.

My own personal opinion is still – and I know that this puts me at odds with most conspiracy theory writers – that Alexander Litvenenko was assassinated by Russian agents via pollonium poisoning. Most of what I’ve read over the years (from various sources) makes me inclined to lean towards that explanation. (more…)

When it comes to Syria, you can set your watch for all the different acts in the stage-play that is the mass-media and international coverage.

I referred to Syria previously as ‘Syria the Movie’, in regard especially to the media production company known as the White Helmets. It’s a movie with endless sequels: and the script and structure never changes, the dialogue is all the same.

First up, let’s make an obvious prediction: there’s going to be another staged ‘chemical attack’ very soon – if not in the next few days, then definitely in the next few weeks. (more…)

The ‘age of stupid’ is the only term I can think of for framing this ongoing nonsense.

President Trump and members of his administration have taken the questionable approach of stating outright that the US will respond severely if the Syrian government carries out another chemical attack on civilians.

More than that, it is insisting that Damascus is planning said attack and claims to have proof of this. (more…)

Unsurprisingly, more or less every image of the sarin attack victims being circulated in international media seems to have involved the infamous White Helmets or bears their logo.

However many Nobel Peace Prizes they might get nominated for or however many Oscars they win, the White Helmets (funded by the US, UK and France) has already been extensively discredited and is a fake media/false-flag operation in the form of a Hollywood-ised NGO and embedded with Al-Qaeda and other jihadists in Syria (see here, or go straight to Vanessa Beeley’s work).

It should be enough that the White Helmets have previously been caught with Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) and other extremist militias and have also been caught on numerous occasions faking videos or images to provoke Western powers into attacking the Syrian government: but the fact that CNN and various media outlets, along with various Western officials, have once again based their entire condemnation of the Assad government solely on ‘evidence’ provided by the White Helmets and foreign-backed rebels in Idlib is both highly suspect and business as usual. (more…)

The entirety of international corporate media seems to have completely forgotten – or deliberately omitted – the fact that the Syrian government had officially completed the removal of its last remaining chemical weapons stockpile as of June 23rd 2014.

This was apparently confirmed by the United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as well as reported by most media outlets at the time (but, strangely, not referred to anymore by the same outlets insisting Assad carried out this latest attack).

In fact, the MSM and government reality-bypassers keep referring to the 2013 Ghoutta attack as “the last time Assad gassed civilians” – when, in fact, that 2013 attack was investigated by the UN and the conclusion was that the rebels had carried out the attack, making Obama’s original ‘Red Line’ position meaningless. (more…)

Aaaaaannd… here we are again.

Hope you enjoyed the brief break from the Neo-Con/regime-change program: but we’re back to the regularly scheduled program. Chemical attack in Syria against civilians. Assad must go. A line has been crossed. Let loose the dogs of war. Etc.

Suddenly, after all the false hopes of a changing foreign policy that would accompany the Trump administration’s arrival, President Trump himself now says he has changed his mind (literally) about Bashar Assad.

I’m not particularly surprised by all of this sleight-of-hand and I always have the view that pre-existing, longstanding foreign policy agendas are designed not to be undermined by incoming officials or pesky changes in administration. (more…)

Not for the first time in the course of the War in Syria, we are seeing major international reports of a chemical attack, allegedly having been carried out by the Assad government forces.

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